Ornithology. 239 



br 10 be of eighteen hours' light, this would make seventy -five miles 

 an hour. It is probable, however, that he neither had so many 

 hours of light in the twenty -four, to perform the journey, nor that 

 he was retaken at the moment of his arrival, so that we may fairly 

 conclude much less time was occupied in performing that distant 

 flight. 



Those who have attended to the flight of "birds, know that a 

 sparrow will fly at the rate of more than thirty m.iles an hour. It 

 is indeed extremely difficult to ascertain the actual distance a fal- 

 con may fly in a given space of time, when in pursuit of its quarry. 

 It has been estimated, however, that one in pursuit of a snipe flew 

 nine miles in eleven minutes, independent of the numerous turns; 

 and the force with which they strike, in the utmost of their veloci- 

 ty, is so great, that a hawk has been known to cut a snipe in two 

 parts. 



The rapidity with which a hawk, and many other birds occa- 

 sionally fly, is probably not less than at the rate of one hundred 

 and fifty miles an hour, when either pursued or pursuing, and their 

 powers fully exerted; and certainly one hundred miles is not be- 

 yond a fair computation for migratory continuance, not only of 

 the hawk, but of the woodcock, snipe, and other similar birds. 

 Some years ago an experiment was made in the vicinity of Ports- 

 mouth, N. H. with a pigeon, to ascertain the rapidity of her flight. 

 She was taken from her young and carried to the distance of eigh- 

 ty miles into the country. After she had been kept there for sev- 

 eral days, she was liberated; and no sooner was she out of the 

 hands of her keeper, than she made her way vertically into the air 

 with the velocity of hghtning, and shortly disappeared. In about 

 forty-fi-ve minutes after, she was seen at the side of her nest feed- 

 ing her young ones. 



Among quadrupeds, the horse is perhaps as fleet as any, and 

 yet the velocity falls very short of that of a bird; the famous racer, 

 Hambletonian^ covered a space of four miles in eight minutes, 

 which is but thirty miles an hour, if it could be continued. Eclipse 

 is said to have gone at the rate of a mile a minute for a short dis- 

 tance. 



